This invention relates to a mount for artificial teeth, commonly known as a tooth card, and operative to support a set of teeth in a row for detachable connection thereto and particularly adapted for display purposes, as well as maintaining the teeth in an orderly manner during storage.
Mounts or cards of this type are well-known and have been used for many years. They have been used to support both anterior and/or posterior teeth, formed either of porcelain or plastic material, and have been employed ever since the dental profession first engaged in the manufacture and sale of prefabricated artificial teeth, in order that such teeth could conveniently be displayed by dental dealers or dentists and dental technicians in a safe and faultless manner for selection of the teeth, as well as for storage thereof, said teeth being readily removable from said mounts or cards when the same were to be used, such as by a dentist or dental technician to include them in a denture.
Mounts of the type referred to have heretofore been made of various materials, such as wood, metal, plastic material or the like, and have ranged from opaque to transparent material which could be pigmented and the design thereof has varied, depending upon the intended use of the artificial teeth, such as for use in dentures or crown and bridge work.
For example, transparent cards from plastic material have been known to card a set of anterior teeth, consisting of two each of central teeth, lateral incisors, and cuspids, while in another design, dimensions of the card from such transparent plastic material were such that porcelain or plastic posterior teeth for both the right and left-hand upper or lower sides of the jaw could be mounted thereon.
According to a further design, it has been known to attach the artificial teeth individually, or as pairs, to relatively short cards and to combine such single or pairs of teeth mounted upon such short cards in assembly with other short cards of complementary teeth to form sets thereof by means of attaching the same to a special carrying member, such as a strip or band, as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,018,884 to Fritz, dated Jan. 20, 1962.
One important feature of the mounts or cards used heretofore is that the card was provided with a recess of several millimeters in width located approximately in the center of the card between the upper and lower edges, running parallel to the longitudinal axis, and this is filled with a soft wax, such as rose-pink in color, and the wax serves as the actual means of adhering the teeth to the tooth card incident to mounting the teeth upon the card in a process referred to as "carding". One type of card of this type is illustrated in prior U.S. Pat. No. 1,658,936 to Myerson, dated Feb. 14, 1928, and in which several examples of recesses for holding such strips of wax are shown.
To afford better judging of the shade features of artificial teeth, other designs of cards have become known that are provided with a small cleft or recess in that part of the card that accommodates the incisal areas of the anterior teeth mounted thereon.
The types of cards now known and referred to hereinabove for supporting artificial teeth have not proven unduly satisfactory, even though they have been known and used for many years because the optical and aesthetic evaluation possibilities afforded by such previously used cards cannot be fully realized and, further, the known disadvantage of the use of wax for adhering the artificial teeth incident to removing the same from the tooth card, comprises an inconvenience which must be overcome by removing such adhering, undesired particles of wax from the teeth before they can be employed in dental restorative techniques.
In order to eliminate certain of the disadvantages set forth above relative to using wax strips for adhering artificial teeth on tooth cards, German Gebrauchsmuster No. 7,403,850 proposed a container made of plastic material provided with individual compartments for accommodating and shipping artificial teeth. This design also is not satisfactory since it is not possible to view and judge sets of anterior and/or lateral teeth as they would appear in a denture, and such as a technician processing artificial teeth has been accustomed to view them. Also, during recent years, the increasing cost of raw material has had an extremely unfavorable affect on the manufacturing costs of tooth cards and thus, has added to the cost of merchandizing artificial teeth mounted thereon.